Warisan president Shafie Apdal recently saw himself being attacked by his former boss Najib Abdul Razak. Najib had leaked several appeal letters concerning government projects when Shafie was in the former prime minister's cabinet.
Najib accused Shafie (above), who was the rural and regional development minister at the time, for allegedly always rejecting open tender processes.
Najib also claimed that Shafie frequently appealed to him back then to choose a selective tender process, as opposed to an open process.
Asked for his response on this, the Sabah chief minister said in an interview on Tuesday that he believed he only came into Najib's crosshairs after being named as a potential prime minister (PM) candidate for the opposition.
"Supposedly he was concerned when Dr Mahathir (Mohamad) mentioned my name as a candidate for PM-9. It never happened (before).
"Only when this issue cropped up, I became (his) target for this sort of thing," Shafie told Malaysiakini.
Malaysiakini has approached Najib's media aide for his comments on Shafie's claims in this article.
Initially not willing to discuss the issue, the Sabahan politician, who last month came under the spotlight after his name was mooted to be the PM candidate for Pakatan Harapan Plus, said he also kept similar letters which Najib had signed.
However, Shafie said, he does not want to go down the same road as Najib. He claimed that Najib also had his fair share of such practices too.
"There were times when we had open tender, and they (those who failed in their bid) said they wanted to make an appeal. And they went to see Najib.
"After they saw Najib, they conveyed a message to me that Najib had agreed. They only need an appeal letter," he explained.
Stressing that there was nothing illegal with writing letters of appeal in the government, Shafie disagreed with singling him out over the matter.
He claims that Najib (photo) had also signed letters approving appeals for government contracts before.
"They shouldn't be saying now that I make this and that appeal. I have copies of those letters too.
"I have copies of letters where he (Najib) signed and approved, and I know.
"But I don't want to (reveal the letters as Najib did). It is okay," Shafie said.
On Saturday, Najib posted on his Facebook page photos of two letters bearing Shafie's signature, which the latter addressed to Najib, appealing to the then PM to reconsider two project tenders.
The letters, both dated in 2013, concerned road-building projects in Johor and Sabah. - mkini
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